Using Opening Day to confirm your preconceived notions about 2015

You didn’t learn anything from Opening Day. You didn’t see something on Opening Day that taught you exactly how the 2015 season is going to end. You watched jets fly over American flags the size of a rural county, you mumbled the words “Opening Day” like someone emerging from a sarcophagus after a 100-year slumber, and you might have watched an awful lot of baseball. But you didn’t learn anything.

Ah, but you certainly could have had preconceived notions and biases confirmed. You thought you were so smart before the season started, and look at how you were proved right. Just ignore anything else that might happen this season because you’ve figured it all out.

I’m with you. Here are some preconceived notions that I had before Opening Day that were wholly confirmed after one day of baseball. Look out: It’s time to double down on opinions that might have been wrong in the first place. Everything you thought you knew is probably right.

This could an overreaction to a ball lost in the sun, something that can happen to Juan Lagares on his best day. But the Padres’ lead against the Dodgers was slowly frittered away, and this Wil Myers misplay was a big part of that.

Could have happened to anyone. It still looked like Myers was walking on baby alligators as he approached the warning track, though. Precious, nibbly baby alligators, and he wanted to save both them and his toes. Every NL West ballpark has a spacious outfield, which means there will be at least 117 games in which a team would want a strong defender in center. If not “strong,” then at least average. Myers has work to do if he wants to be at least average, and that’s a bit of a problem.

Matt Kemp has a lot of work to do if he wants to be below-average, and that’s a major problem.

Note how long it takes for Kemp to enter the frame. I’d like to suggest that he was playing on the foul line, but he probably wasn’t. That bit about the NL West up there applies to right field, too, and Dodger Stadium is the easiest of the bunch. Forget the bobble that got Howie Kendrick to second, and focus on Kemp not getting to the ball in the first place. It wasn’t a play that every rightfielder is going to make, but it’s a play that Kemp isn’t going to make, over and over again.

Of course, Kemp drove in three runs and was responsible for the Padres being in the game in the first place. But there will be games where he doesn’t drive those runs in, and his range will be just as wonky. The Padres made a concerted effort to improve the offense this season, and it was an impressive bit of offseason juggling. The one caveat was that outfield defense, though, and in the very first game it looked dreadful.

As someone who is nose deep in Giants Twitter, I sure heard a lot about Pablo Sandoval yesterday. He was 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, and spurned Giants fans were giving him the business. Look at this bust, this pressing shell of a hitter. Boy, I bet the Red Sox sure feel stupid.

The Red Sox scored eight runs.

Mookie Betts hit a dinger. Dustin Pedroia hit two. Hanley Ramirez hit two, including a broken-bat grand slam. The Phillies were lucky they didn’t give up 12 or 13 runs, but there will be time for that. It was Cole Hamels day, after all, so this was their day for good pitching. And maybe it was good pitching, to some extent, but it was clobbered by better hitting. The Red Sox have absurd depth in their lineup -- Mike Napoli didn’t even start because of interleague rules -- which means they can explode for runs and runs and runs on a day in which Sandoval and David Ortiz combine for six strikeouts in nine hitless at-bats. In Tuesday’s game, they might combine for six hits and the other guys can take the day off.

The key will still be their starting pitching. Clay Buchholz gave up three hits and a walk in seven innings, striking out nine. When you adjust for the team he faced, he gave up four runs and eight hits in six innings, which just isn’t going to get it done if the Red Sox don’t have the offense most of us are predicting from them. It looks like that won’t be an issue, though. For we have seen one game and, lo, it was frightening and ominous.

Kyle Kendrick out-pitched Cole Hamels on Opening Day.

This appeared in a box score:

The centerfielder is a Rule 5 pick who has never played about Double-A, and he looked like it. Chase Utley’s bat looked slow: Ryan Howard said, “Man, I wish my bat were that fast” when he watched Utley. The left side of the infield might combine for a .270 OBP this year, but at least they’ll have problems fielding, too.

You knew all of this going into the season. There are no secrets about the Phillies and their new direction. However, every five games, there’s supposed to be an oasis. They’re supposed to get the opportunity to touch Hamels every week and yell “BASE,” so the bully teams can’t tag them. When they don’t get that chance, when the bully teams hang them off a doorknob by their underwear, that’s when things start looking apocalyptic. If they can’t win their Hamels starts ...

Jeff Sullivan got into greater detail than I was going to about Masahiro Tanaka, so I’ll just steal his words.

With Tanaka, given what he’s going through, I think there’s a certain air of inevitability. Many people figure he’s going to break, so that’s the lens through which observations and interpretations will be made. Any issue will be a sign of imminent doom. Any adjustment will reflect an attempt to avoid imminent doom. And for the most part, I get it, and this is fine, because the math is heavily against Tanaka’s chances. Yet because he is still pitching, and because surgeons have agreed with this plan, it’s worth trying not to be so certain.

Fair enough. But then the next paragraph begins:

Tanaka, on Monday, looked a lot like a junk-baller.

Yeah, that’s what I saw, too. An uncomfortable pitching MacGyver, who was using whatever scraps he had on-hand to get out of the mess he was in. He had a splitter, an avocado, and a corkscrew. The splitter worked fine, but major league hitters can always hit the avocado.

I don’t know the inside story of why Tanaka is opting to pitch through the partial ligament tear, if it’s a personal decision or if the Yankees suggested this was the most helpful scenario, but it makes sense on some level. The Yankees plan doesn’t work without Tanaka, and that goes for 80-percent Tanaka, too. They need someone at the top of the rotation, and if all they can find is 80-percent Tanaka, by gum, that’s who they’ll have to use.

If he’s 60-percent Tanaka, this is probably going to end poorly. If it’s 40-percent Tanaka with a chance that they get 0-percent Tanaka until 2017, well, it’s a gamble that will end with the roulette table on fire. I think I saw 80-percent Tanaka yesterday. The fastball was, as everyone will point out, less than optimal. But he still kept hitters off-balance. He didn’t need a batting-practice screen out there. He wasn’t helpless. He just wasn’t the Opening Day ace the Yankees have been crossing their fingers for.

Just as long as no one in the New York media overreacts, we should all ...

Oh. Still, if not Tanaka, though, then whom? Even if the Yankees shoot Wolverine blood into his elbow and restore everything to its natural state, they still might not have enough of a rotation to contend. Getting an early return like they did on Monday, then, doesn’t auger well, especially if CC Sabathia struggles on Thursday.

Fine, I’ll put Dallas Keuchel in my autocorrect safe zone. The lefty out-dueled last year’s Cy Young winner, and it didn’t look odd while it was happening. You weren’t waiting for the other cleat to drop. It was a standard, top-of-the-line Opening Day showdown, which shows how far the Astros have come.

They have injuries in the rotation, so don’t get too giddy about their Opening Day. Their lineup had just three hits, after all. Still, their lineup has a relentless, can’t-sleep-clown-will-eat-me vibe to it, with wild, powerful hackers at the bottom, just when a pitcher might want to relax. Then there’s Jose Altuve, sweet Jose Altuve, at the top, with power behind him. It’s enough to wear down even someone like Kluber, pitching his best.

Enough to win the AL West? Probably not with three viable contenders at the top, all of whom have substantial depth of their own. But a postseason berth for the Astros would surprise me only as much as the postseason berth from last year’s Royals and Orioles. If the Astros contend, we’re not talking the story of the 2015 season though, something that dominates the conversation because we just can’t believe it’s actually happening. It would be merely surprising, not preposterous.

Also, Clayton Kershaw is probably worse than Kyle Kendrick. I don’t have enough bullet points or visual evidence on that one to make that a standalone section, but you can’t argue with results. More importantly, though, Opening Day reinforced some of my preconceived notions. That’s what it’s there for. As long as you selectively pay attention and never change your mind about anything, Opening Day might teach you a lot, actually.